It looks like Chick-Fil-A, a chain restaurant that will soon open in Walnut Creek is causing more heartache for not only themselves as events they sponsor are coming under attack due to the controversial stance against gay marriage by the CEO Dan Cathy. The Walnut Creek Half Marathon race has Chick-Fil-A as a sponsor and this generated a storm of protest on their Facebook page:
it has come to our attention that the sponsors we work with are not always your favorites. We apologize for this, but the show must go on…
Official Statement on WCHM business relationships.
The Walnut Creek Half Marathon encourages fitness through running and promotes competitive running at its highest levels. We give back to our local communities, especially high schools. We intend to put on a world class running event as good or better than major cities marathons. To accomplish this goal, brand affiliations and sponsorships of the Walnut Creek Half Marathon are an essential part of our offerings. These affiliations are based on local business relationships alone. As a local organization ourselves, we prefer to work with local business and franchisees. We do not participate in the decision-making of these groups as it relates to “stances” with our affiliates at the corporate level.
It then goes on to list their sponsors including Chick-Fil-A. The post generated 30 comments so far, with some expressing disappointment and deciding to skip the event while some were supportive.
Is boycotting an event that has a sponsor that you don’t support taking things too far or is this a reasonable way to protest against Chick-Fil-A?